This invention relates to an assembly attached to a water meter capable of receiving meter readings, encoding them, and transmitting the encoded meter readings to a remote mobile location.
In moderate climate zones, water meters are located in underground enclosures in areas adjacent to residences, businesses or other dwellings. These enclosures are referred to as “pits” and frequently have pit lids that cover the enclosure and the water meter within the enclosure. In the last decade or so, there have been various attempts to read such meters remotely, via RF communications.
Previous attempts to make devices of this type required elaborate design to ensure that the assembly is sealed against environmental conditions in its operating environment. The resulting devices are somewhat bulky and cumbersome to install and operate. In addition, previous assemblies were subject to tampering, giving false readings or disabling the device. Many of the previous assemblies transmit and receive signals on the same frequency. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a simpler design that is less bulky, easy to install and tamper-proof or tamper evident and have the ability to transmit and receive signals on different frequencies to allow the remote unit to more reliably selectively interrogate and receive signals from one of several pit transponders within its range.